Skip to content

Releases: ZiZc3/XPSemu

Release list

XPSemu Alpha 1

XPSemu Alpha 1 Latest
Latest

Choose a tag to compare

View all tags
@ZiZc3 ZiZc3 released this 01 Oct 16:13
alpha-1
23f75bc

XPSemu Alpha 1

The original Xbox, running natively on a PlayStation 5.

XPSemu is xemu (the open-source original Xbox emulator) ported to the jailbroken PS5 as a native app, using xemu's Vulkan renderer on Mihawk-99's RADV driver.

Prebuilt app included. This release ships a ready-to-install PPSA97358.zip — no build needed. (XPSemu combines GPL-2.0 and GPL-3.0 components in one binary; Mihawk-99 has kindly permitted distributing builds made with his drivers.)

What's new

Everything — this is the first playable release.

  • Full emulator: Xbox CPU (QEMU TCG JIT), NV2A GPU (xemu Vulkan renderer on RADV), MCPX audio, DualSense as Xbox controller.
  • Xbox-style dashboard: cover-flow game carousel, recently played shelf, per-game settings, play time tracking, menu sounds.
  • Game patches: Jay's Magic Patch (.jmp) format, applied in memory (ISOs untouched), with automatic checksum matching.
  • XPSemu Tools (xpsemu_tools.elf): standalone app-jailbreak daemon, replaces the PS5SX2 Helper. Multi-firmware, whitelist-gated, quiet.
  • Performance: ThinLTO + Zen 2 build, CPU pinning, UI frame skip, MMX/SSE/float fast paths, shader/pipeline/driver disk caches. Fable went from ~7 FPS to 23-30 FPS across builds.
  • Per-game log with FPS, frame times, thread load and a built-in CPU profiler.
  • Xbox video switches (widescreen, 480p, 720p, 1080i) in the emulated EEPROM.

Tested games

Game Status Notes
Halo 2 ✅ Good 30 FPS stock; 51-60 FPS with the 60 FPS patch.
Forza Motorsport ⚠️ In-game 30 FPS in menus, 15-21 FPS racing.
Fable: The Lost Chapters ⚠️ In-game 22-30 FPS normally, 10-20 in heavy areas.
Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex ✅ Great Runs smoothly.

Requirements

  • Jailbroken PS5 (e.g. firmware ≤13.60)
  • kstuff + XPSemu Tools (xpsemu_tools.elf)
  • ShadowMountPlus
  • Your own Xbox BIOS files and XISO games (not included)

Installation

  1. Download PPSA97358.zip, extract it, and copy PPSA97358/ to /data/homebrew/PPSA97358/. Mount it with ShadowMountPlus.
  2. Load xpsemu_tools.elf with kstuff.
  3. Add PPSA97358 to /data/whitelist.txt (create the file if it doesn't exist).
  4. Put your Xbox files (BIOS, HDD, MCPX) in /data/xemu/ and games in /data/xemu/games/.
  5. Launch XPSemu from the home screen.
    Note: if you want the original Xbox dashboard, your xbox_hdd.qcow2 must already have the dashboard installed on it — otherwise the Xbox Dashboard button won't work.
    Also if Use PS5SX2 PS5SXHelper.elf does the same thing as xpsemu_tools.elf so only use one.

See the README for full details. Prefer building from source? follow "Building from source" in the README.

Known limitations

  • CPU-bound: heavy scenes in some games run below their cap.
  • 64 MB Xbox memory only (no 128 MB mode).
  • XISO only (redump images must be converted).
  • No save states or save manager yet.
  • Patches with APPEND records not supported.

Credits

xemu team, QEMU, Mihawk-99 (PS5_Vulkan / PS5_Mesa / PS5_PayloadSDK — and thanks for allowing prebuilt releases using his drivers), ps5-payload-dev SDK, Swordpdf (PS5SX2 as reference), etaHEN, kstuff, ShadowMountPlus, JayXbox PatchHub, Dear ImGui, SDL3, GLib, and the PS5 scene.

Assets 4
Loading